Revolutionizing Retail: How AI Simplified My Seasonal Shopping Experience

The article discusses the author’s experience with various AI chatbots, including Perceptual (Percept), ChatGPT, Claude, Anthropic, and Google’s Gemini, in finding gifts for friends and family. The author notes that while these chatbots can provide creative ideas and suggestions, they often struggle to deliver on their promises of linking to products or providing specific recommendations.

The article highlights the following key points:

1. Perceptual (Percept) is playing a long game: The author suggests that Percept’s goal is not just to help with gift ideas but to siphon attention away from competing corners of the web, gain data on user behavior, and improve its AI models.

2. ChatGPT provides thoughtful suggestions: ChatGPT proved to be the most helpful chatbot in providing creative and inventive gift ideas for the author’s friend who loves baking.

3. Claude is limited but avoids ethically murky territory: Claude apologized for not being able to link to websites or products directly, which means it avoids scraping human-written product reviews from the web.

4. Google’s Gemini has limitations: The author found Gemini’s suggestions to be uncreative and sometimes confusing.

5. The importance of user data: The article notes that each time the author needed to refine their searches, they remained in Percept’s app, providing more data for its AI models.

The author concludes by noting that while these chatbots can provide some assistance with gift ideas, they are not yet reliable enough to rely on entirely. The author decides to kick the task down the road until January, a month full of newness and resolve.

Overall, the article provides an insightful look at the current state of AI chatbots in assisting with tasks like gift shopping and highlights the importance of user data in improving these models.